Energy Management (“EM”) data includes, but is not limited to, Electrical Operation Data such as volts, amps, status, power; Power Quality Data such as harmonics, power factor, reliability (such as number of nines), disturbance data; Consumption Data such as energy and demand; Event Data such as set point actions, status changes and error messages; Financial Data such as energy cost, power factor penalties, revenue data; billing data such as tariffs for gas, water, steam and air; Environmental Data such as temperature, pressure, humidity, pollution, and lightning/atmospheric disturbance data; Water Air Gas Electric Steam (“WAGES”) data; Configuration data such as frameworks, firmware, software, calculations involving EM Data and commands; and aggregated data, where at least one energy management datum is combined with other data points. Combined data includes measured data, aggregated data and/or computed data.
An EM component is an entity that creates, consumes or routes EM data. These components include but are not limited to: Intelligent Electronic Devices (“IEDs”) (also known as EM Devices), digital sensors as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,236,949, gateways, and computers.
IEDs include revenue electric watt-hour meters, protection relays, programmable logic controllers, remote terminal units (“RTUs”), fault recorders, other devices used to monitor and/or control electrical power distribution and consumption, RTUs that measure water data, RTUs that measure air data, RTUs that measure gas data, and RTUs that measure steam data. IEDs are widely available that make use of memory and microprocessors to provide increased versatility and additional functionality. Such functionality includes the ability to communicate with other hosts and remote computing systems through some form of communication channel. IEDs also include legacy mechanical or electromechanical devices that have been retrofitted with appropriate hardware and/or software allowing integration with the power management system. Typically an IED is associated with a particular load or set of loads that are drawing electrical power from the power distribution system. The IED may also be capable of receiving data from or controlling its associated load. Depending on the type of IED and the type of load it may be associated with, the IED implements a function that is able to respond to a command and/or generate data. Functions include measuring power consumption, controlling power distribution such as a relay function, monitoring power quality, measuring power parameters such as phasor components, voltage or current, controlling power generation facilities, computing revenue, controlling electrical power flow and load shedding, or combinations thereof. For functions that produce data or other results, the IED can push the data onto the network to another IED or back end server/database, automatically or driven by events, or the IED can send data in response to an unsolicited request. IEDs capable of running Internet protocols may be known as “web meters”. For example, a web meter may contain a web server.
For the purposes of the present disclosure, a computer is defined as a device that comprises a processing unit and includes, but is not limited to, personal computers, terminals, network appliances, hand-held device that reads data from EM devices, Personal Digital Assistants (“PDAs”), wired and wireless devices, tablet personal computers, mainframes, as well as combinations thereof.
A framework is a set of interconnected functions that are uploadable to a device and that affect the behavior of the device. A framework can be produced from scripting languages like PERL, VBScript and XSLT, predicate logic like Prolog, fuzzy logic and functional programming, spreadsheets like Visicalc and Excel, user interface definitions such as XSLT and XFORMS, and downloadable software that is interpreted, just-in-time compiled or compiled. Alternately, frameworks may be created and manipulated by connecting multiple integrated object network (“ION®”) modules together. ION® defines the way information, specifically power monitoring information, is accessed, transferred and manipulated inside an EM Device. The functionality and data manipulation of the EM Device can be accomplished by one or several frameworks stored in the IED software. A complete list of ION® modules is contained in the “ION® Reference Manual”, printed by Power Measurement Ltd., located in Saanichton, B.C., Canada.
One or more EM components may be coupled together in arbitrary configurations to form EM networks.
EM systems are formed by coupling one or more EM Networks together. When there is more than one EM network within the system, the networks can be linked in any functional way. Not all networks within a system are required to be directly coupled with one another, and EM networks may be coupled with one another via a third EM network or some other intermediary. Non-EM networks may also couple EM networks with one another.
These EM networks or EM systems represent many entities, including Device Manufacturers, Utilities, Power Consumers, End Users, National Accounts Customers, Load Serving Entities (“LSEs”), Application Service Providers (“ASPs”), Independent Service Operators (“ISOs”), Non Affiliated Entities (“NAEs”), customer sites running device configuration utilities, Meter Shops, and Third Party Data Sources providing energy related data such as weather, tariffs and so forth.
LSEs are entities authorized to supply energy to retail customers.
ASPs are typically entities that supply software application and/or software related services over the Internet.
ISOs are entities that were formed to distribute electricity to the grid after deregulation.
NAEs are groups of entities that may share some information with each other but are not closely related. For example, utilities, energy marketers, ISOs and other entities all need to exchange EM data with one another as part of their business, but don't necessarily trust each other or share the same private network.
An exemplary device configuration utility is ION® Designer, manufactured by Power Measurement Ltd, of Saanichton, B.C. Canada.
Meter Shops are plants or industrial units where IEDs are configured.
Some EM components may host Energy Management Software (“EM Software”) systems that allow users to manage associated EM components, networks and/or systems. An exemplary EM Software package is ION® Enterprise, manufactured by Power Measurement Ltd, of Saanichton, B.C. Canada. For the purposes of this application, a user is considered to be either a person or a component that interacts with, extracts data and provides commands and data to an EM component, EM network, or EM system.
EM components within the same network communicate with one another via channels. Components in different networks communicate with one another as well, possibly using different channels. A channel is essentially the infrastructure used to move data from one place to another, and can include public or third-party operated networks such as: Virtual Private Networks (“VPNs”), Local Area Networks (“LANs”), Wide Area Networks (“WANs”), telephone, dedicated phone lines (such as ISDN or DSL), Internet, Ethernet, paging networks, leased line; wireless including radio, light-based or sound-based; Power Line Carrier schemes; data transported by couriers, postal services or meter readers driving around in vehicles, where the data is stored in some format such as printed, magnetic, optical, flash memory, RAM, on a computer, Personal Digital Assistant (“PDA”), Hand-Held Format (“HHF”) reader or other device.
VPNs connect disjoint parts of the same network. They also allow authenticated users to communicate securely over the Internet with a protected or private network. VPNs work by allowing client devices to securely communicate with a VPN concentrator or server. The client or concentrator may be embedded in another device such as a firewall or a router. This is particularly valuable when users are separated by geographic distance that otherwise limits their access to the protected or private network.
Power Line Carrier describes a family of networking technologies that enable computer and voice networking over existing electrical wiring.
Various protocols that may be used in the EM System include but are not limited to: TCP/IP, Bluetooth, Ethernet, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b and IEEE 802.11g, HTTP, SMTP, NNTP, POP, IMAP, IPSec, Trivial File Transfer Protocol (“TFTP”), Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol (“BEEP”), Zigbee, MIME, SNMP, SOAP, and XML-RPC.
Many different data formats that may be used to exchange data, including but not limited to: binary, XML, XHTML and XHTML Basic, XHTML Basic as an Infoset in another form besides tagged text, Binary encoded equivalents of XML Infosets including Wireless Binary XML (“WBXML”), ASN.1 encoded XML, Scalable Vector Graphics (“SVG”), Direct Internet Message Encapsulation (“DIME”), Comma Separated Values (“CSV”), XML Remote Procedure Call (“XML RPC”), Simple Object Access Protocol (“SOAP”) (with signature at SOAP level and/or enclosed content level), SOAP (using WS-SECURITY with signature at SOAP level and/or enclosed content level), application specific content like spreadsheet data, an HTTP response to an unsolicited HTTP request, a response to an unsolicited message, HHF, PQDIF, MODBUS, ION®, or other SCADA protocol where a response can be packaged up and embedded in another protocol or format. These formats are frequently sent as MIME or UUENCODE attachments and are considered part of the protocol stack.
Most channels between components in an EM System are insecure channels subject to security attacks including malicious acts such as forgery, denial of service, invasion of privacy and so forth. Messages passed over insecure channels are subject to interception, tampering and fraud. Successful malicious acts may result in unintentional security breaches such as faults, power outages, financial losses, exposure of sensitive data, turning off or on equipment that other parts of system rely on, depriving use of the system, and so forth. Legitimate users may also unintentionally perform some action that compromises the security of the system.